The loss of Royal Challengers Bangalore to the Rajasthan Royals on the April 27 match shocked many, including former West Indies player Ian Bishop, who expressed his concern regarding the defeat. The Royal Challengers Bangalore, who got bowled out to Sunrisers Hyderabad for 68 (the team’s second lowest in the league), faltered while chasing 145 against the Rajasthan Royals.
Royal Challengers Bangalore failed to adapt to the conditions, on a surface where the ball was very challenging to the batters. The team’s approach to go hard with their runs was ineffective as Rajasthan Royals bowlers Kuldeep Sen (4/20) and Ravichandran Ashwin (3/17) proved victorious in their plans to dismantle RCB’s batting unit.
Former RCB skipper Virat Kohli executed a couple of boundaries off Trent Boult during the first over, but he toe-ended an attempted pull shot in the next over to Prasidh Krishna.
Kohli, with his scores in the last five innings aggregating 22 runs with successive golden ducks against Sunrisers Hyderabad and Lucknow Super Giants, was eventually dismissed for nine in 10 deliveries in the match.
Bishop thinks that Royal Challengers Bangalore has serious team issues and that Kohli should step up and deliver big innings.
Bishop told ESPN Cricinfo: “This worries me a lot more (than 68 all out) because I am still not seeing Virat Kohli getting the runs that he needs to get for this team to prosper. That middle-order, if Glenn Maxwell doesn’t fire, and you can go at him with hard pace if you have it in your armory, is a real concern. The guys were saying RCB has one bad game a year. That last game was it. But if you can’t chase 145, you have got issues.”
“Kohli still looks like he is feeling for an innings. Faf du Plessis and Maxwell need him to lead and take a little bit of pressure off them and just be as aggressive as possible. He can step out and take momentum, he can carve through the off-side and put pressure back on the bowlers,” he added.
Bishop concluded: “Couldn’t see RCB coming with two bad games in a row. They have some serious issues to deal with. It was good to see Virat at the top, but if RCB are to go further, he has to get runs.”
Early in the match, Rajasthan Royals youngster Riyan Parag was able to score a brisk half-century (56 in 31 balls), boosting his team to a moderate score of 144/8, which proved to be substantial in the hindsight of the match.
